Editor’s Note – Uganda’s readiness to pour 10,000 troops into Mogadishu angers one leader more than anyone else in the region: Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. Perceived as leader of a regional military power capable of silencing the Somali insurgents, Meles has been harboring a wildest dream that AU forces would be routed by Al Shabab that AU would eventually seek Ethiopian intervention. Such role earns Meles not only Western diplomatic support but also huge financial gains in the form of military aid. But Uganda looks like determined to snatch the largess. Ah, Kampala the spoiler!
KAMPALA, Uganda – Uganda said Wednesday it is ready to send 10,000 more troops to Somalia if the U.S. provides the funding, a move that would see the African Union force in Mogadishu more than double in size.
Uganda’s pledge comes in the wake of twin bombings in Kampala during July’s World Cup final that killed 76 people. Somalia’s most dangerous militant group, al-Shabab, said it carried out the attack because of the presence of several thousand Ugandan troops in Mogadishu as part of the nearly 7,000-strong African Union force.
The spokesman for Uganda’s army, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, said the country has 10,000 more forces trained and ready to deploy to Somalia, but the country needs the U.S. to provide assistance.
“The USA committed itself to fund the peacekeeping troops,” Kulayigye said. “Once they provide what they promised we will send the troops.”
The U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Uganda, Joann Lockard, said the U.S. has already provided funds for an additional 1,000 Ugandan troops to deploy to Somalia. The U.S. also continues to work with African nations to increase the overall support for AMISOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia, she said.
The U.S. has already obligated more than $185 million in support of AMISOM troops from Uganda and Burundi, she said.
“The United States is encouraging other donors and African nations to step forward to provide additional troops and financial and logistical support to AMISOM,” Lockard said.
During an African Union summit in Kampala in late July, African leaders pledged more troops for Somalia, a stance the U.S. said it supported. However, most Somalia observers say Somalia needs a political solution more than a military one. The country has not had a functioning national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew the president.
Al-Shabab, an ultraconservative militant force that has ties with al-Qaida, is trying to overthrow the weak, U.N.-backed Somali government and install its harsh interpretation of Shariah law countrywide.
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Associated Press writer Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.
MOGADISHU, Somalia, Sept. 2 (UPI) — Somali insurgents with al-Shabaab are negotiating a partnership with the radical Islamic movement Hezb ul-Islam, a senior militant suggested.
Al-Shabaab last week launched a major offensive against the beleaguered Somali government, killing four lawmakers in a raid on a downtown hotel.
Ali Mohamed Hussein, an al-Shabaab leader in the Somali capital, warned the public that war was on the horizon, Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reports.
“We are asking for public support, reckoning the possibility that war planes join the conflict in Mogadishu,” he was quoted as saying. “We want the people (near the capital) to help us.”
He said peacekeepers stationed in the area were expecting reinforcements soon. The organization, meanwhile, is in negotiations to form a partnership with radicals in the Islamic movement Hezb ul-Islam, the report adds.
Sources close to the rebel talks told the Kenyan newspaper that al-Shabaab was pressing for unification with Hezb ul-Islam under the name Harakatu al-Shabaab al-Mujaheddin, or the movement of the youth jihadists.
The African Union has around 6,000 troops in Mogadishu and the United States, the Arab League, France and the European Union pledged support for the Somali government.
A mortar attack Monday blamed on al-Shabaab killed four Ugandan soldiers with the African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu.
The group said it declared war on the AU peacekeepers.
